THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE

BASILICA:

1. Legal codes. Since the great
codification of the Roman law by Justinian, the
Corpus juris civilis, was written in Latin, it could
not meet the needs of the East, and required Greek
translations. To do away with the uncertainty
which had arisen from such versions, in 878 the
emperor Basil the Macedonian had a handbook
put together, covering forty titles, and put out a
revision in 885. A further revision and codification of the
older laws, edited once more under Leo
the Wise (886), bears the Greek name of ta
basilika.
It is in sixty books, based on Justinian's compilation
from the older versions and commentaries,
with extracts from his later constitutions known
as the Novell, and from Basil's handbook mentioned
above.

BASILIDES, bas-i-lai'dîz, AND THE BASILIDIANS:

Basilides.

Basilides, a famous Gnostic, was a pupil
of an alleged interpreter of St. Peter, Glaucias by
name, and taught at Alexandria during the reign of
Hadrian (117-138). He may have been previously
a disciple of Menander at Antioch, together with
Saturnilus. The Acta Archelai state that for a time
he taught among the Persians. He composed
twenty-four books on the Gospel, which, according
to Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, iv, 12),
were entitled "Exegetics." Fragments of
xiii and xxiii, preserved by Clement and in the
Acta Archelai, supplement the knowledge
of Basilides furnished by his opponents. Origen is
certainly wrong in ascribing to him a Gospel. The oldest
refutation of the teachings of Basilides, by Agrippa Castor,
is lost, and we are dependent upon the later accounts of
Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Hippolytus.
The latter, in his Philosophumena, gives a presentation
entirely different from the other sources. It either rests on
corrupt accounts, or, more probably, on those of a later, post-Basilidian
phase of the system. Hippolytus describes a monistic
system, in which Hellenic, or rather Stoic, conceptions stand in
the foreground, whereas the genuine Basilides is an Oriental
through and through, who stands in closer relationship to Zoroaster
than to Aristotle.

His System.

The fundamental theme of the Basilidian speculation is the
question concerning the origin of evil and how to overcome it. The answer
is given entirely in the forms of Oriental gnosis, evidently influenced by
Parseeism. There are two principles, untreated and self-existent, light
and darkness, originally separated and without knowledge of
each other. At the head of the "kingdom of light" stands "the uncreated,
unnamable God." From him divine life unfolds in successive steps. Seven
such revelations form the first ogdoad, from which issued the
rest of the spirit-world, till three hundred and sixty-five spirit-realms had
originated. These are comprised under the mystic name Abrasax, whose
numerical value answers to the number of the
heavens and days. Being seized with a longing
for light, darkness now interferes. A struggle of the
principles commences, in which originated our
system of the world as copy of the last stage of the
spirit-world, having an archon and angel at its
head. The earthly life is only a moment of the
general purification-process which now takes place
to deliver the world of light from darkness. Hence
everything which is bad and evil in this system
of the world becomes intelligible when regarded in
its proper relations. Gradually the rays of light
find their way through the mineral kingdom,
vegetable kingdom, and animal kingdom. Man
has two souls in his breast, of which the rational
soul tries to master the material or animal. For
the consummation of the process an intervention
from above is necessary, however. The Christian
idea of the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ
is the historical fact which Basilides subjects to his
general thoughts. God's "mind" (Gk. nous)
descended upon Jesus as dove at the Jordan, and he
proclaimed salvation to the Jews, the chosen people
of the archon. The suffering of Jesus, Basilides
admitted as a historical fact, but he did not understand how
to utilize it religiously. The Spirit of God is the redeemer,
not the crucified one. Jesus suffered as man, whose light-nature
was also contaminated through the matter of evil. But the
belief in the redemption which came from above
lifts man beyond himself to a higher degree of exist-

2

ence. How far the individual can attain it
depends on the degree of pure entanglement in
former degrees of the spirit-world. In the perfected spirit-world the place will be assigned to
each which belongs to him according to the degree
of his faith.

The Basilidians.

Among the Basilidians, Basilides' son, Isidore,
occupies a prominent place. Of his writings ("On
the Excrescent Soul," "Exegetics," "Ethics")
some fragments are extant. The sect does not seem
to have spread beyond Lower Egypt. In opposition to the rigid
ethics of their master, the Basilidians seem
often to have advocated libertinism. According to Clement
of Alexandria they celebrated the sixth or the tenth of January as the day
of the baptism of Jesus. On the importance of
this fact for the origin of the ecclesiastical festival
of the Epiphany, cf. H. Usener,
Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, i (Bonn, 1889).